... like:
The family who followed my son and I into his trampolining class, last week. Daddy, little boy, little girl and mummy - proudly pushing 10 day old baby girl. Baby girls will always give me a pang. It was the briefest of pangs because she was gorgeous and sweet and DIFFERENT. Not my baby. That makes a difference these days. What hurt for longer - what still hurts - was the hungry look in my son's eyes. He's seven. It's not fair.
...like:
Coming across her name as I'm marking exam papers - or your baby's name. Because, even though the exam scripts I'm marking are from 11 year olds - giving them first dibs on the names really, I still consider those names OUR names, chosen with care for the babies we love so profoundly. I have to be careful not to overmark all the Emmas I encounter - not to give them extra marks for simply giving me the pleasure of seeing her name written in girlish scrawl.
... like:
Taking Toby "swimming" (dandling him in slightly warm water for all of five minutes, whilst he ponders it all very seriously - as is his wont - before he considers my skimpier than normal attire an open invitation for a snack and attempts to dive bomb my breasts!)
I take him out of the pool, wrap him in a towel and feed him. Milked up and exhausted, he falls asleep in my arms and I'm BACK, back in the hospital room when the midwives handed her to us. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair was still curly-wet fuzz from amniotic fluid and her sweet little mouth was a little slack - not from milkdrunkeness - but from death. I don't see her in him so often these days. He is almost 18 pounds with the cheeks and the thighs to match. He is so alive and so substantial and so very much himself but, in that moment, she was there too. Which is good and painful and confusing, all at once.
Showing posts with label Emma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emma. Show all posts
Friday, 11 June 2010
Monday, 26 April 2010
Acceptance?
I think it's fair to say that I'm doing okay. "Acceptance", "Integration" ... whatever the correct turn of phrase might be, I see it happening in my life. Not always - the black can still get me in a stranglehold sometimes - but mostly. I am happy. I can count my blessings. I laugh. I am able to enjoy my life again. A friend shared recently how, two years on, she is able to think of her son not only with love (which was there from the start) but with affection too. That's how I feel about Emma too. I don't always cry when I think about her - sometimes I smile with pleasure at the simple idea of her having been. Now, after a little while on this lifelong journey, I can separate her from her death and just enjoy the knowledge that she's my little girl eternally.
Sometimes, I even pull myself up, "Did I really have a baby who died before she was born?". Even after the hard evidence of the trauma and the pain and the hardship of the past eighteen months, I still can't quite believe it. It feels like a hazy, half-remembered nightmare. But then I pick up Toby and hold him in front of the photographs on the mantelpiece and point to Emma and tell him, "That's your big sister." and it feels very real all over again.
Sometimes, I even pull myself up, "Did I really have a baby who died before she was born?". Even after the hard evidence of the trauma and the pain and the hardship of the past eighteen months, I still can't quite believe it. It feels like a hazy, half-remembered nightmare. But then I pick up Toby and hold him in front of the photographs on the mantelpiece and point to Emma and tell him, "That's your big sister." and it feels very real all over again.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Eighteen Months
The daffodils we planted on Emma's birthday are blooming now. I stood by her grave today, in the peace and the sunshine, and wondered at the passing of time. It's been long enough for us to plant bulbs and for those bulbs to grow and flower. Sometimes it feels like forever. I can't remember the person I was on 13th October 2008. Other times, like today, it's still so close. I can be back in the hospital room, her tiny body lifted onto my chest. Triumph - followed by devastation. I remember removing the clothes the midwives had dressed her in and holding her bare body inside my nightdress in some parody of kangaroo care. I was so warm, she was so cold. My heart was beating hard enough for both of us - but it wasn't enough. I was waiting for my miracle that day - I was going to make headlines. "Baby presumed dead suddenly breathes." I didn't (of course). She remained dead and I remain bereft of my daughter and my miracle.
Eighteen months, sweetheart. We love you and we miss you.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Still Here.
I needed to step away, pause, regroup - enjoy these fleeting, precious newborn moments with my last child.
But I still need this place. Because, despite the joy and happiness that Toby has brought back to our family, my daughter is still dead. Still dead. Still dead. Stillborn, still dead. And I still miss her deeply. I still want to speak her name. Toby has given me opportunities to do that. People ask who he looks like. "Emma. He looks like Emma," I say - and watch their confusion, their memories ticking over as they try to remember who Emma is. My daughter, his sister. I have not forgotten and I will speak her name over and over again. It may discomfort them but it brings me comfort.
He smiles now - and it melts me to tears. Tears of joy, tears of absolute devastation. He is so beautiful when he smiles. I know her smile would have been adorable too and I feel like I've lost her all over again.
And even though I've not been writing or reading here as frequently, I have been thinking about you all. I am still here.
But I still need this place. Because, despite the joy and happiness that Toby has brought back to our family, my daughter is still dead. Still dead. Still dead. Stillborn, still dead. And I still miss her deeply. I still want to speak her name. Toby has given me opportunities to do that. People ask who he looks like. "Emma. He looks like Emma," I say - and watch their confusion, their memories ticking over as they try to remember who Emma is. My daughter, his sister. I have not forgotten and I will speak her name over and over again. It may discomfort them but it brings me comfort.
He smiles now - and it melts me to tears. Tears of joy, tears of absolute devastation. He is so beautiful when he smiles. I know her smile would have been adorable too and I feel like I've lost her all over again.
And even though I've not been writing or reading here as frequently, I have been thinking about you all. I am still here.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
The same, so different.
All four of my children have looked similar at birth - there is no mistaking their sibling relationship. But Emma & Toby ... perhaps because of their colouring or perhaps I just want to see it more ... they are so very, very alike.
I am happy and I am content. I am totally and utterly in love with the tiny boy who snuggles in my lap. But when I hold him as he naps, I can look up and see her photograph (the same picture as the one on this blog) and the tears fall so easily. In his sleep, the similarities are painful because that is how I remember her - the stillness. And yet, it isn't the same. Even in his sleep, Toby is not still. He frowns, he makes little milk moues searching for the breast he is dreaming about, he squeaks, he melts our hearts. He wriggles with wind.
I call Emma our forever baby - I don't like the term angel and this description sits more easily with me. The truth of it hurts though. At one week old, Toby has changed more, grown more than ever Emma will. I am forcibly reminded of what I am missing as the mother of a child forever a newborn. And yet, I agree with Jay when she speaks of the thinness of the veil separating us from our children. I feel Emma's presence so profoundly and strongly right now and I'm so glad of it.
I'm relieved that I was prepared (a little) for this. I have read lots of blogs by mothers raising subsequent babies so the grief that is entwined with our joy has not taken me by surprise. I have always been clear that none of my living children bear any responsibility for healing me. They simply make my heart sing - and that is the same for Toby as it is for Ben & Lucy.
I am happy and I am content. I am totally and utterly in love with the tiny boy who snuggles in my lap. But when I hold him as he naps, I can look up and see her photograph (the same picture as the one on this blog) and the tears fall so easily. In his sleep, the similarities are painful because that is how I remember her - the stillness. And yet, it isn't the same. Even in his sleep, Toby is not still. He frowns, he makes little milk moues searching for the breast he is dreaming about, he squeaks, he melts our hearts. He wriggles with wind.
I call Emma our forever baby - I don't like the term angel and this description sits more easily with me. The truth of it hurts though. At one week old, Toby has changed more, grown more than ever Emma will. I am forcibly reminded of what I am missing as the mother of a child forever a newborn. And yet, I agree with Jay when she speaks of the thinness of the veil separating us from our children. I feel Emma's presence so profoundly and strongly right now and I'm so glad of it.
I'm relieved that I was prepared (a little) for this. I have read lots of blogs by mothers raising subsequent babies so the grief that is entwined with our joy has not taken me by surprise. I have always been clear that none of my living children bear any responsibility for healing me. They simply make my heart sing - and that is the same for Toby as it is for Ben & Lucy.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Seven Minutes.
Beth left a comment on my last post that got me thinking. She said that she hadn't realised that Emma had died SEVEN minutes before she was born. I'm not surprised. I talk a lot about how I plod my way through grief and I even wrote this post about the person I thought my daughter was or might have been. But I've been reticent about sharing the details of her birth - which was also her death. Partly because I've done pretty well at avoiding the attentions of the malevolent "anonymous" trolls who leave despicable and thoughtless comments on the blogs of grieving parents. I suspect a post about birth choices might draw some of them out of the woodwork. Mainly, however, it's because I'm frightened of being revealed as a fraud. I think all of us grieving parents recognise guilt as part of the grief process. We also understand that mostly the guilt is not based on reality. But, how do you process it when choices you made are implicated in your child's death?
In real life, I have worked hard on this. Mostly, I have made peace. My obstetrician assured me just hours after Emma's death that I would never know if she might have lived through an elective section. He was sure that arriving at the hospital sooner would not have changed the outcome. They were some of the kindest words I could have heard in the immediate aftermath of her death.
But, as I approach Jurgen's increasingly imminent arrival in this world and I feel the familiar dread of a surgical birth enfold me, I realise that this might be one part of my grief that I will never fully accept or "heal" from. I'm hoping writing here will release some of the panic I feel as I prepare for our fourth child. I will have the planned section because I am a mother and I want what is best for my child. It seems that operative deliveries are best for my children so, of course, I set aside my own preferences to hopefully obtain the best and safest outcome for my baby but I miss feeling joy and anticipation at the prospect of labouring and birthing my baby myself.
Emma will be my only vaginally birthed child. Her two older siblings were born by emergency section after long and difficult labours. I experienced some post-natal post traumatic stress disorder after the birth of her elder sister. It isn't nice - it isn't, of course, one billionth as painful as living for the rest of your life with babylost grief - but it isn't a pleasant or easy way to start mothering a child. I know that some babylost parents feel very frustrated by mothers who profess birth trauma after the birth of a living child - and I understand that entirely. I mention it here because it is part of the path that led to me making the decision to pursue a vaginal birth at home with Emma. NHS protocols here meant that I would have been offered a planned section at 39 weeks for her birth. Would I be here if I hadn't declined that path? What if ... what if... two horrible words to live with.
We don't know because we don't exactly know why Emma died. I went into labour spontaneously, my labour for the most part was straightforward. Emma, by every indication used to determine distress, was a perfectly happy baby for the duration of my labour. The last time we heard her heartbeat at 2.17am, just after we had transferred to the hospital so I could have a little bit of help with my second stage, it was well within the healthy range for a baby so close to birth (and we're pretty sure it was her heartbeat not mine, something I've been asked about when I share this part of the story). At 2.25am, I birthed a baby with no breath and no heartbeat. We didn't have an autopsy because it seemed so obvious to us that it was a "birth accident". Sometimes I wonder if a postmortem would have showed something more but I think that's because I want to believe that healthy babies being born to healthy mothers during healthy labours can't die. I'm proof to myself that they can. She was a good healthy size, her placenta and cord were healthy and revealed no clues. The best guess we can make is that her cord became pinched between me and her in those final minutes.
In the absence of any definite answers to her death, I have had to simply surrender to the course of action that will bring Jurgen into the world. I don't feel like I can make any choices for this little boy or little girl. I tried last time to make the choices that were "best" and safest for myself and my child. With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out they were neither.
In real life, I have worked hard on this. Mostly, I have made peace. My obstetrician assured me just hours after Emma's death that I would never know if she might have lived through an elective section. He was sure that arriving at the hospital sooner would not have changed the outcome. They were some of the kindest words I could have heard in the immediate aftermath of her death.
But, as I approach Jurgen's increasingly imminent arrival in this world and I feel the familiar dread of a surgical birth enfold me, I realise that this might be one part of my grief that I will never fully accept or "heal" from. I'm hoping writing here will release some of the panic I feel as I prepare for our fourth child. I will have the planned section because I am a mother and I want what is best for my child. It seems that operative deliveries are best for my children so, of course, I set aside my own preferences to hopefully obtain the best and safest outcome for my baby but I miss feeling joy and anticipation at the prospect of labouring and birthing my baby myself.
Emma will be my only vaginally birthed child. Her two older siblings were born by emergency section after long and difficult labours. I experienced some post-natal post traumatic stress disorder after the birth of her elder sister. It isn't nice - it isn't, of course, one billionth as painful as living for the rest of your life with babylost grief - but it isn't a pleasant or easy way to start mothering a child. I know that some babylost parents feel very frustrated by mothers who profess birth trauma after the birth of a living child - and I understand that entirely. I mention it here because it is part of the path that led to me making the decision to pursue a vaginal birth at home with Emma. NHS protocols here meant that I would have been offered a planned section at 39 weeks for her birth. Would I be here if I hadn't declined that path? What if ... what if... two horrible words to live with.
We don't know because we don't exactly know why Emma died. I went into labour spontaneously, my labour for the most part was straightforward. Emma, by every indication used to determine distress, was a perfectly happy baby for the duration of my labour. The last time we heard her heartbeat at 2.17am, just after we had transferred to the hospital so I could have a little bit of help with my second stage, it was well within the healthy range for a baby so close to birth (and we're pretty sure it was her heartbeat not mine, something I've been asked about when I share this part of the story). At 2.25am, I birthed a baby with no breath and no heartbeat. We didn't have an autopsy because it seemed so obvious to us that it was a "birth accident". Sometimes I wonder if a postmortem would have showed something more but I think that's because I want to believe that healthy babies being born to healthy mothers during healthy labours can't die. I'm proof to myself that they can. She was a good healthy size, her placenta and cord were healthy and revealed no clues. The best guess we can make is that her cord became pinched between me and her in those final minutes.
In the absence of any definite answers to her death, I have had to simply surrender to the course of action that will bring Jurgen into the world. I don't feel like I can make any choices for this little boy or little girl. I tried last time to make the choices that were "best" and safest for myself and my child. With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out they were neither.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
And the world turns ...
In a couple of hours it will be a milestone date again - fourteen months on the fourteenth. In a couple of weeks it will be Christmas again. Things move on apace and I wonder if I have too. I suppose I have in some ways. Crying is no longer a daily occurrence and the anger is all but gone (sweet relief). I am fumbling my way towards some sort of reconciliation in my faith - tentatively and in a piecemeal fashion - but it feels like progress.
But, I still wake up some days and it hurts. I couldn't explain why yesterday was so much harder than the days preceding it - there was no obvious trigger but there it was. Grief - sharp, bitter, uncomfortable and draining. Sometimes it's a relief to know the tears can still come - they remind me of how much I love my baby. How much I miss her. How much I still want her back.
But, I still wake up some days and it hurts. I couldn't explain why yesterday was so much harder than the days preceding it - there was no obvious trigger but there it was. Grief - sharp, bitter, uncomfortable and draining. Sometimes it's a relief to know the tears can still come - they remind me of how much I love my baby. How much I miss her. How much I still want her back.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Funeral
A year ago today, our family all gathered in the parish church near our house to say our formal goodbyes to Emma. Not our final goodbyes because, to me, that's what grief is - a lifetime of saying "I love you and I miss you and I'm trying to say goodbye".
I still find that thinking about her funeral triggers the disbelief. I still can't believe that I am someone who had to organise MY CHILD's funeral. It still makes me shake my head in sad wonderment - especially when I remember that most of us plan and order such things so soon after our babies leave us. When I think back to the state I was in this time last year I honestly cannot remember how we managed to make the plans we did - I suppose the numbness serves a useful practical purpose.
We don't have photographs of Emma's funeral - this is not something I regret. It never crossed our mind that it might be a day we wanted to document to be honest. Moments of the day are burned into my mind anyway - the moment my dad carried her tiny, tiny casket into the foyer of the church, the moment Dave's dad carried her out of the church. I close my eyes and I can be back there in a moment.
I honestly don't know what to do with this anniversary. Are we "supposed" to mark it in some way? Do we want to? We're away from home today so even a visit to her graveside is not practical. We visiting family, surrounded by noise and chaos and small people - it's very different from a year ago ... maybe that's for the best?
I still find that thinking about her funeral triggers the disbelief. I still can't believe that I am someone who had to organise MY CHILD's funeral. It still makes me shake my head in sad wonderment - especially when I remember that most of us plan and order such things so soon after our babies leave us. When I think back to the state I was in this time last year I honestly cannot remember how we managed to make the plans we did - I suppose the numbness serves a useful practical purpose.
We don't have photographs of Emma's funeral - this is not something I regret. It never crossed our mind that it might be a day we wanted to document to be honest. Moments of the day are burned into my mind anyway - the moment my dad carried her tiny, tiny casket into the foyer of the church, the moment Dave's dad carried her out of the church. I close my eyes and I can be back there in a moment.
I honestly don't know what to do with this anniversary. Are we "supposed" to mark it in some way? Do we want to? We're away from home today so even a visit to her graveside is not practical. We visiting family, surrounded by noise and chaos and small people - it's very different from a year ago ... maybe that's for the best?
Friday, 16 October 2009
Emma's day.
Thank you all for remembering us. I have been so touched by the outpourings of love and compassion sent to us from so many sources. Emma's birthday was gentle and went as well as it could overall, I think. If anything, the 13th was probably harder as I kept reliving my lovely labour and remembering when I felt so excited about meeting our baby, before I knew it was all going to go wrong.
Dave had the day off work. Over breakfast, we all had a little present each to unwrap in memory of Emma - which the kids thought was great! We dropped the children off at school and then went to Emma's grave to plant daffodils and narcissi around her headstone. Hopefully, they'll bloom in the spring (we're not very accomplished gardeners so we're crossing our fingers). We came home and I baked a birthday cake for our little girl and then DH and I went out for a pub lunch together. We spent the time after school playing with Lucy's new baby guinea pigs, who are both very sweet and made us smile. I imagine Emma would have loved tormenting them! Then we all ate birthday cake. It was hard but it was special too - I'm glad we managed to do some things that marked it as "her" day.
Dave had the day off work. Over breakfast, we all had a little present each to unwrap in memory of Emma - which the kids thought was great! We dropped the children off at school and then went to Emma's grave to plant daffodils and narcissi around her headstone. Hopefully, they'll bloom in the spring (we're not very accomplished gardeners so we're crossing our fingers). We came home and I baked a birthday cake for our little girl and then DH and I went out for a pub lunch together. We spent the time after school playing with Lucy's new baby guinea pigs, who are both very sweet and made us smile. I imagine Emma would have loved tormenting them! Then we all ate birthday cake. It was hard but it was special too - I'm glad we managed to do some things that marked it as "her" day.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
October
So here it is - with a twist of the calender we've got here. THE month. It's an absolutely perfect, beautiful, crisp autumn day here. It won't be long before the kids and I can stop on the village green on our way home from school and fill our pockets with conkers - we didn't do that last year. Firstly, because at 39ish weeks pregnant simply waddling home was pretty much enough excitement in my day and then - well, a lot of "normality" went by the wayside through October and November and beyond.
I read Jay's beautiful meditation as she approaches Josie's first birthday too. I've known and followed Josie's story since the beginning. She and Emma were born and died just four days apart so our paths have coincided many times. Jay's musings on grief and acceptance resonate very strongly with me right now. It's true for me too - although I am sliding into a quiet melancholy, I don't feel the same rawness now as I did at the beginning and I don't feel compelled to try and recreate it for her birthday. There is a gentleness about my grief now that I'm content to live with.
Unlike many babylost parents, I'm not dreading Emma's one year day. I almost feel a sense of relief that I'm reaching that point, that I made it, that I have survived a whole twelve months without her sweet babyness here on earth. Last October I couldn't have told you I would. I don't feel as though I am passing through some portal that will separate us because I know that nothing could. I carry the essence of her with me into this second year and forever more.
Almost eleven months ago, I had an idea for a piece of art. It has remained unexecuted because I'm afraid that I lack the necessary skills to execute the fabulous idea in my head! I wanted to draw a mother's face and upper body with an outsized tear falling from her eye and an outsized heart bursting from her chest. I wanted to draw a tiny baby nestled in her tear and one in her heart and inscribe it with the words "In my tears and my ever pregnant heart" because she is. She is there, always and eternally, whether it be one year or eleven or one hundred and one. Maybe I'll screw up every tiny ounce of my limited artistic ability and actually make it one day soon. Watch this space.
I read Jay's beautiful meditation as she approaches Josie's first birthday too. I've known and followed Josie's story since the beginning. She and Emma were born and died just four days apart so our paths have coincided many times. Jay's musings on grief and acceptance resonate very strongly with me right now. It's true for me too - although I am sliding into a quiet melancholy, I don't feel the same rawness now as I did at the beginning and I don't feel compelled to try and recreate it for her birthday. There is a gentleness about my grief now that I'm content to live with.
Unlike many babylost parents, I'm not dreading Emma's one year day. I almost feel a sense of relief that I'm reaching that point, that I made it, that I have survived a whole twelve months without her sweet babyness here on earth. Last October I couldn't have told you I would. I don't feel as though I am passing through some portal that will separate us because I know that nothing could. I carry the essence of her with me into this second year and forever more.
Almost eleven months ago, I had an idea for a piece of art. It has remained unexecuted because I'm afraid that I lack the necessary skills to execute the fabulous idea in my head! I wanted to draw a mother's face and upper body with an outsized tear falling from her eye and an outsized heart bursting from her chest. I wanted to draw a tiny baby nestled in her tear and one in her heart and inscribe it with the words "In my tears and my ever pregnant heart" because she is. She is there, always and eternally, whether it be one year or eleven or one hundred and one. Maybe I'll screw up every tiny ounce of my limited artistic ability and actually make it one day soon. Watch this space.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
My grief work
After reading Lea's lovely news about her new pregnancy and her thoughts about a second blog, I contemplated the possibility of starting a new blog to document Jurgen's journey. I only contemplated it briefly. I am unlikely ever to win an award for world's most prolific blogger as it is and I know that I would not be able to do either blog justice. So, with your permission, I will remain a solitary blog kinda girl for now.
This is Emma's place and I still intend it primarily to be about her and my journey since meeting her, kissing her and saying goodbye. There will be the occasional pregnancy post of course. The crazy triad of birth/death/maybe life that is pregnancy after loss (so powerfully articulated by Sally here) is an enormous part of my tangled, messy grief yarn right now. Parts of Emma's birth and death that I thought I had begun to process, begun to integrate suddenly loom very large again now.
I remember reading "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" just a few days after Emma died and latching on with absolute fervour to the idea of "grief work". The idea that grief was something I could "do" something about, the possibility of clawing back some control in a situation where I lost every last vestige of controlling influence - that possibility was a heady and intoxicating one. It still is, although I think I possibly have a more nuanced idea of what it means now. I might be able to "do" grief but I cannot do away with with it.
I also remember reading a thread over on the pregnancy loss section of Mothering, not long after Emma died when my arms ached to hold a baby and getting pregnant again seemed the cure for all ills. There was a wise and gentle post written by a someone who was several years into this journey. She found herself unexpectedly and quickly pregnant again after the death of her precious firstborn daughter. She talked abut how she handled her still very raw grief alongside her hope of a different outcome for her second pregnancy. She talked of working on her first daughter's scrapbook & journal whilst all the time documenting her journey towards meeting her second little girl. It seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, a powerful and positive way to approach a new pregnancy and I have stored it away in my brain for a time like now.
I'm about to leave the first trimester and today I saw Jurgen again, doing headstands. I am being forced to believe (against my current inclination to preclude any optimism in case of a jinx) that at his moment in time, this pregnancy is progressing well. When I was expecting Emma, I started a cross stitch birth sampler for her. I didn't start it until I was 34 weeks as I was making one for her cousin first who was expected before she was. So Emma's was unfinished when she was born. I looked at it a few days after I arrived home from the hospital and had what might have been my first coherent thought of the aftermath. "I can't complete this now but if I ever have another pregnancy, this is my project to get me through". I have not touched it again but now I'm ready. Ready to document my daughter whilst I wait hopefully for her sibling. Like the cross stitch, this blog is a place to document her too, another place where I do my grief work.
I think there is still quite a lot to do.
This is Emma's place and I still intend it primarily to be about her and my journey since meeting her, kissing her and saying goodbye. There will be the occasional pregnancy post of course. The crazy triad of birth/death/maybe life that is pregnancy after loss (so powerfully articulated by Sally here) is an enormous part of my tangled, messy grief yarn right now. Parts of Emma's birth and death that I thought I had begun to process, begun to integrate suddenly loom very large again now.
I remember reading "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" just a few days after Emma died and latching on with absolute fervour to the idea of "grief work". The idea that grief was something I could "do" something about, the possibility of clawing back some control in a situation where I lost every last vestige of controlling influence - that possibility was a heady and intoxicating one. It still is, although I think I possibly have a more nuanced idea of what it means now. I might be able to "do" grief but I cannot do away with with it.
I also remember reading a thread over on the pregnancy loss section of Mothering, not long after Emma died when my arms ached to hold a baby and getting pregnant again seemed the cure for all ills. There was a wise and gentle post written by a someone who was several years into this journey. She found herself unexpectedly and quickly pregnant again after the death of her precious firstborn daughter. She talked abut how she handled her still very raw grief alongside her hope of a different outcome for her second pregnancy. She talked of working on her first daughter's scrapbook & journal whilst all the time documenting her journey towards meeting her second little girl. It seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, a powerful and positive way to approach a new pregnancy and I have stored it away in my brain for a time like now.
I'm about to leave the first trimester and today I saw Jurgen again, doing headstands. I am being forced to believe (against my current inclination to preclude any optimism in case of a jinx) that at his moment in time, this pregnancy is progressing well. When I was expecting Emma, I started a cross stitch birth sampler for her. I didn't start it until I was 34 weeks as I was making one for her cousin first who was expected before she was. So Emma's was unfinished when she was born. I looked at it a few days after I arrived home from the hospital and had what might have been my first coherent thought of the aftermath. "I can't complete this now but if I ever have another pregnancy, this is my project to get me through". I have not touched it again but now I'm ready. Ready to document my daughter whilst I wait hopefully for her sibling. Like the cross stitch, this blog is a place to document her too, another place where I do my grief work.
I think there is still quite a lot to do.
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
My Girl.
The test on 4th February 2008 confirmed what I already knew. I had joked on a TTC forum that I was either pregnant or having one heck of a phantom pregnancy. Even before the hormones were strong enough to show, they were making me sickly and sore. My solicitous daughter - giving me strong, strong signs to support me through the frightening early weeks of a pregnancy conceived quickly after a miscarriage.
I felt her move at 14 weeks - early I suppose. I feel such gratitude for having a few extra weeks of cherishing her presence in a more tangible way. Her movements were gentle, unlike those of her big brother, who thought he was John Travolta and gave frequent in utero renditions of "Staying Alive" at 2am in the morning. I never worried for the health of my ribs or my bladder with Emma. Ironically, hers was the only pregnancy not to entail a frightened phone call to the maternity ward concerning reduced movements - she was never terribly active nor terrifyingly still. She and I passed our days gently, lyrically.
I had regular osteopathic treatment through my second and third trimester and I'd lie quietly, feeling her feline stretches in me. She liked those moments as much as she hated the Doppler. Her heartbeat always seemed easy to catch but never for long. She would twist and turn away from the wand - demonstrating a definite preference for privacy.
I always think of her as generous spirited and giving. After all, Tuesday's child (according to the rhyme) is full of grace. She was the only one of my children (and will always be unique in this respect) to initiate spontaneous labour - and on the day before her due date. As a mummy who was concerned about a long pregnancy (40+12 & 40+7 for the last two) , I was so proud of my little "Bobby Bingo" for surprising everyone with an "early" arrival.
I don't know if I will ever write about the details of my actual labour here. I don't think I can. My feelings are confused, vacillating. One the one hand, it was a beautiful and peaceful space - a time to heal a lot of the birth trauma that I experienced with my previous two births. On the other hand, something went very silently and catastrophically wrong. Labour killed my baby girl. She slipped away from us without us ever knowing.
And then I held her in my arms: 7lbs & 4oz and chubby. Gorgeously round little body - so healthy looking. She was the image of her sister - the same button nose, perfect cupid bow lips and almond shaped eyes but with dark hair. I'd joked in labour how I was hoping for the set - a red head, a blondie and now, maybe, a brunette. She was a brunette - the only one of my children to have my colouring. She had long fingers, like her brother - another pianist for the family. I wish I knew if she had a birth mark. I didn't look for one when I took off the clothes the midwives had dressed her in and held her naked against my chest, willing her heart to start beating again. I forgot to look to see if she had the little genetic tic that runs in my family - a very slightly webbed toe that both my son and I have. "Did Emma?" he asked once. I cried when I told him I hadn't looked.
As I read back what I've written here, I see my choice of words give shape to the person I think she would have been: solicitous, gracious, lyrical and generous hearted, less of a fire cracker than her big sister! And my heart breaks all over again to realise that I will never truly know in this lifetime. All I can do is share my proud memories of my littlest girl, my Emma Faith.
I felt her move at 14 weeks - early I suppose. I feel such gratitude for having a few extra weeks of cherishing her presence in a more tangible way. Her movements were gentle, unlike those of her big brother, who thought he was John Travolta and gave frequent in utero renditions of "Staying Alive" at 2am in the morning. I never worried for the health of my ribs or my bladder with Emma. Ironically, hers was the only pregnancy not to entail a frightened phone call to the maternity ward concerning reduced movements - she was never terribly active nor terrifyingly still. She and I passed our days gently, lyrically.
I had regular osteopathic treatment through my second and third trimester and I'd lie quietly, feeling her feline stretches in me. She liked those moments as much as she hated the Doppler. Her heartbeat always seemed easy to catch but never for long. She would twist and turn away from the wand - demonstrating a definite preference for privacy.
I always think of her as generous spirited and giving. After all, Tuesday's child (according to the rhyme) is full of grace. She was the only one of my children (and will always be unique in this respect) to initiate spontaneous labour - and on the day before her due date. As a mummy who was concerned about a long pregnancy (40+12 & 40+7 for the last two) , I was so proud of my little "Bobby Bingo" for surprising everyone with an "early" arrival.
I don't know if I will ever write about the details of my actual labour here. I don't think I can. My feelings are confused, vacillating. One the one hand, it was a beautiful and peaceful space - a time to heal a lot of the birth trauma that I experienced with my previous two births. On the other hand, something went very silently and catastrophically wrong. Labour killed my baby girl. She slipped away from us without us ever knowing.
And then I held her in my arms: 7lbs & 4oz and chubby. Gorgeously round little body - so healthy looking. She was the image of her sister - the same button nose, perfect cupid bow lips and almond shaped eyes but with dark hair. I'd joked in labour how I was hoping for the set - a red head, a blondie and now, maybe, a brunette. She was a brunette - the only one of my children to have my colouring. She had long fingers, like her brother - another pianist for the family. I wish I knew if she had a birth mark. I didn't look for one when I took off the clothes the midwives had dressed her in and held her naked against my chest, willing her heart to start beating again. I forgot to look to see if she had the little genetic tic that runs in my family - a very slightly webbed toe that both my son and I have. "Did Emma?" he asked once. I cried when I told him I hadn't looked.
As I read back what I've written here, I see my choice of words give shape to the person I think she would have been: solicitous, gracious, lyrical and generous hearted, less of a fire cracker than her big sister! And my heart breaks all over again to realise that I will never truly know in this lifetime. All I can do is share my proud memories of my littlest girl, my Emma Faith.
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